Tides of History

What Hacker News says

1. AmorymeltzerJul 2026
   Patrick Wyman—of the Tides of History podcast—just put out a new book, Lost Worlds, which is worth a read if this is your bag. The basic premise is that the way ancient history is typically taught, "that we moved linearly from foraging to farming, and then from country farmers to city-dwelling, tax-paying subjects of kings and emperors," is essentially wrong. He goes on:

   >All of those developments occurred in an orderly sequence: First farming and village life arrived; then surpluses born of human achievement that created social inequality; then hierarchies with priests and chieftains at the top; then massive monuments, cities, states, and writing to keep track of it all. Geographically, the old story of those developments centered on the Fertile Crescent of western Asia, and to a lesser extent the Nile Valley of Egypt....

   >That story is wrong in some respects and incomplete in far more.

   It's a constant rise and fall, with innovations and cities/civilizations that both did and didn't succeed often equally valid and appropriate paths to take. Sounds kind of bog-standard, I guess, but it's rife with examples of "Oh yeah here's a 1,500 year-old city, but it was 7,000 years ago and then disappeared so you've never heard of it."

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2. dmreedyMay 2023
   For a longer-form treatment, Patrick Wyman's podcast, Tides of History, has been going through an extended series about prehistory, including the bronze age collapse. It's a lot, and mostly through a particular thinker's lens, but still worthy I think.
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3. DubiousPusherMay 2023
   Patrick Wyman's, Tides of History podcast has done a lot of episodes on this and is a great introduction.

   Yale's introductory Greek history class with lectures from Donald Kagan is available online and part of it covers the Mycenaean empire and its fall.

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4. marojejianJan 2023
   I think this episode of Tides of History includes effectively a good review:

   https://art19.com/shows/tides-of-history/episodes/cb335af3-e...

   Wyman evaluates it with both sympathy and criticism.

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5. acjohnson55Mar 2022
   Tides of History, also by Patrick Wyman, is also fantastic. Among many other topics, it covers the fall of the Byzantine Empire and rise of the Ottoman Empire.
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6. the-smug-oneFeb 2021
   The medieval period was a fairly long ordeal with large differences over both time and place.

   Life post-black death in Europe, for example, included a heightened QoL for many as population density was lowered.

   Many peasants in Europe had their own plot of land but also had to spend some time working his lords' fields. Often the lords had to supplement this with paid work - peasants did not particularly like giving away their labour for free and as such did not work very hard.

   My source is Patrick Wyman's podcast "Tides of History". He has a PhD in history. He has a Substack also: https://patrickwyman.substack.com/ and another great podcast, "The Fall of Rome".

   I cannot ensure that my assertions hold for all of Europe :-).

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